


It's an Old Scar, It's my Whole Heart.

by dante_alicheery



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Gen, Magic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 13:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4789169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dante_alicheery/pseuds/dante_alicheery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma's spent the last year and a half at a cottage on the edge of the forest, with only her plant and experiments for company. So of course it's Grant Ward who finally ruins her solitude, with his cocky smile and a proposition she's not sure she wants to refuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's an Old Scar, It's my Whole Heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for WS Summer, though I guess it's super late for that. 
> 
> Prompt: Magic
> 
> Title cobbled out of lyrics from Florence + The Machine's Which Witch.

She's tending her garden when the first whispers start, like a tickling where her skull meets her spine. Like knowing that you're being watched. So there's plenty of time for her put away to vanish into the woods behind her cottage if she so wishes. The trees would hide her, confound and confuse any intruder who dared to slip between their trunks, throw their roots in the way of feet and slap faces with their well-placed branches. 

But she doesn't move from her spot, takes her time pruning the rosebush in front of her. She's clipping the last errant bud, the sheers snapping in the air, when his boots hit her driveway, when she smells smoke. It's not until he's outside her garden gate that she sets those sheers aside, and looks up into the face of Grant Ward.

"Well, you've made a cozy little hideaway for yourself," he says, and he's smirking in a way that causes those metaphorical butterflies to flutter lazily through her abdomen. She swears he wasn't able to do that before, on the Bus (not that she needed it to crawl into bed with him) but since the skiáthurge and battle mage revealed where his true loyalties lie, she discovered he had many abilities she hadn't known about. And she'd discovered it more than once.

It was quite hard to keep that thought off of her face, much to her embarrassment. "Yes, I have. And it's your fault that I had need of it." Partially, anyway. 

He shrugs lazily, and in one swift movement he leapt over the fence, dangerously close to stepping on her prized oleanders. If she finds so much as a pale pink petal crushed under his heel, she thinks, he'll wish she'd decided it was a beautiful day for a walk in the trees.

But then he digs in his pocket, and produces a little plastic case, like the one that usually protected a fifty pence toy. A little plastic case full of little wrinkled, black seeds. Smart. Plastic would contain any of the seeds innate power. "I bought you a present."

Her irritation immediately evaporates. "Are those… aconite seeds?"

"Yep." He pops the 'p,' just to annoy her, and pulls the case back. His grin is absolutely wolfish. Aconite has been illegal for nigh on seventy years, since the Sorcerous and Hermetic order Investigation and Esoteric Law-Enforcement Directorate was formed (and didn't she roll her eyes whenever she'd had to say all that aloud). Aside from being extremely poisonous to the average human, it was called for in some absolutely lethal charms and potions. She's been itching to experiment with it since she began working on her mage's accreditation, but getting a hold of it was nearly impossible. Even SHIELD wouldn't allow their leading phytothurge access to such dangerous material, and they let her play with foxgloves to her hearts content. Especially after she produced a freezing potion so potent it could work on the most powerful of battle mages. 

Apparently, being HYDRA had more perks than she realized. Perhaps getting out of the game entirely hadn't been entirely the best decision after all. 

"And what will I have to do to obtain them?" she asks. The question comes out a bit less cool than she wanted, but she manages to raise an imperious brow. Not that he misses the greed in her voice. He'd heard it far too many times not to recognize it now.

"Nothing. They're a gift." He tosses them underhanded to her, and she fumbles to catch it before it fell in her rosebushes. They'd try to help if they got caught among the thorns, bless them, but they'd end up doing more harm than good. Roses never knew their own strength. "But I would appreciate your help with something."

She cradles the plastic bubble to her chest. "And what's that, exactly."

"My men found this tricky little potion during one of their raids. It doesn't kill, but's not like your ICER potion, either. We just want to know how it works. Should be easy for a mage of your caliber." 

She ignores the flash of pleasure the recognition, and the accompanying grin, kindles in her. "So you can figure out how to neutralize it."

"Neutralize, reverse engineer. Same difference, right?"

"And what do I get out of it?" she challenges.

He nods toward her prize. "There's more where that came from. And not just aconite. Redoul and snakeroot and angel's trumpet. Every potent and poisonous plant you've been kept away from because," he straightens his back and gets all dour, and it takes a moment for her to realize he's imitating Coulson. Coulson, who won't use his own abilities for much more than talking to the recently deceased. Who wouldn't call Fitz back even though he'd just crossed the threshold, and any half-way decent necromancer could have brought him back without any loss of faculties or any memory of what had transpired. "'They'd cause 'too much damage in the wrong hands,' or they 'contain too much power for us mere mortals.'"

She laughs, despite herself. Despite the anger that still burns through her at the reminder of her former C.O, still strong enough to unsettle the roses, sending their stems rustling. She reached out with just a thread of her power to sooth them as she thought it over. Finally, she looked back at him. "It would just figuring out what's in the potion."

"That's it. No senseless murder of innocents or mass destruction involved."

She stands, not bothering to brush the dirt off of her stained jeans. "And if I want to be a little more… hands-on?"

His eyes light up. "I think I speak for the rest of my organization when I say we'd be more than happy to accommodate. Can I ask what sparked your change of heart?"

"Coulson let Fitz die, Trip shatter and Skye to be implanted with an experimental alchemical compound that threw her psalmotechy wildly out of control. I think undoing one of his inferior mage's work is the least bit of payback he has coming to him. Besides…" she steps up for him, getting in his personal space in a way she hasn't been able to in months. She can already feel the crackle of his aura against hers, and she doesn't regret it. Hadn't regretted any of their encounters, actually, even since HYDRA revealed itself. She supposes she should be ashamed of that.

But the way he looks at her now, even with her hair plastered to her face with sweat, even in her dirt-stained jeans and over-sized shirt makes her think she made at least one right decision during her time on the Bus. 

"Besides what?"

"You still owe me." With that, she slips through the garden gate, making sure to reach out to her garden one last time in farewell. They'll miss her, of course, as much as any plant can, but they won't need her to survive. And they'll still be here when she returns. If she returns. 

Grant is quick to follow her, and though he makes a show of not rushing, he catches up to her quite easily. "Well, whatever for, I'm sure I can pay my debt."

"Mm. You'd better."


End file.
